Children of divorced parents -- United States -- Fiction; Divorce -- Fiction; Families -- Fiction
I had not been home from Newport a week when Jerry kept his promise
and "ran down." And _he_ had not been there two days before Father and
Mother admitted that, perhaps, after all, it would not be so bad an
idea if I shouldn't graduate, but should be married instead.
And so I was married.
(Didn't I tell you that Jerry always brought his rings and put them
on?)
And again I say, and so we were married.
But what did we know of each other?--the real other? True, we had
danced together, been swimming together, dined together, played tennis
together. But what did we really know of each other's whims and
prejudices, opinions and personal habits and tastes? I knew, to a
word, what Jerry would say about a sunset; and he knew, I fancy, what
I would say about a dreamy waltz song. But we didn't either of us know
what the other would say to a dinnerless home with the cook gone. We
were leaving a good deal to be learned later on; but we didn't think
of that. Love that is to last must be built upon the realization that
troubles and trials and sorrows are sure to come, and that they must
be borne together--if one back is not to break under the load. We
were entering into a contract, not for a week, but, presumedly, for a
lifetime--and a good deal may come to one in a lifetime--not all of it
pleasant. We had been brought up in two distinctly different social
environments, but we didn't stop to think of that. We liked the same
sunsets, and the same make of car, and the same kind of ice-cream;
and we looked into each other's eyes and _thought_ we knew the
other--whereas we were really only seeing the mirrored reflection of
ourselves.
And so we were married.
It was everything that was blissful and delightful, of course, at
first. We were still eating the ice-cream and admiring the sunsets. I
had forgotten that there were things other than sunsets and ice-cream,
I suspect. I was not twenty-one, remember, and my feet fairly ached
to dance. The whole world was a show. Music, lights, laughter--how I
loved them all!
_Marie_, of course. Well, yes, I suspect Marie _was_ in the ascendancy
about that time. But I never thought of it that way.
Then came the baby, Eunice, my little girl; and with one touch of her
tiny, clinging fingers, the whole world of sham--the lights and music
and glare and glitter just faded all away into nothingness, where it
belonged. As if anything counted, with _her_ on the other side of the
scales!
I found out then--oh, I found out lots of things. You see, it wasn't
that way at all with Jerry. The lights and music and the glitter and
the sham didn't fade away a mite, to him, when Eunice came. In fact,
sometimes it seemed to me they just grew stronger, if anything.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account